Tiflet Child Rape Case: Court Deemed 10-18 Year Prison Sentence ‘Too Severe’

Rabat – The Court of Rabat has justified the light, two-year prison sentence handed last week to three men involved in repeatedly raping and impregnating a minor, saying that the judge in the case had deemed the prison sentence provided for in the penal code “too severe” for this particular crime.

According to court filings, the Rabat court further indicated that the judge in the Tiflet child rape case most probably reached their verdict while taking into account the perpetrators’ social background and the fact that they had no criminal precedent.

This controversial opinion comes as outraged Moroccans and human rights NGOs across the country continue to condemn the Tiflet court’s “unacceptable” and “shocking” handing of a light two-year prison sentence to three adult males found guilty of repeatedly raping a victim who was only 11-years old at the time of the incident in 2021.

Contentious attenuating circumstances

Under Moroccan law, crimes of child rape are penalized with 10 to 18 years in prison. However, courts have the right to rule otherwise provided that they can point to attenuating circumstances.

In this particular child rape case, court filings indicate that the Tiflet court deemed that the three perpetrators disadvantaged social background and lack of prior criminal record constituted attenuating circumstances. A verdict of 10-18 years, as provided for in the Moroccan Penal Code, would have been “too severe” for the case at hand, the court assessed.

This was despite the fact that the victim, now aged 13, testified that she was repeatedly raped by the three perpetrators who had threatened to kill her and her family if she ever talked about that horrific experience. She said that her family only learned about the crime after she became pregnant.

The three perpetrators, one of whom is married and a father of three, have strongly denied any wrongdoing. Yet DNA tests indicated that one of the perpetrators is indeed the biological father of the victim’s one-year-old boy.

In the wake of the controversial verdict, Moroccan author Yassmine Chami launched a petition condemning the court’s “despicable” ruling.

The petition, which calls for the reopening of the case and for the establishment of an observatory or independent mechanism to oversee court rulings in cases that involve violence against women and children, has been signed by thousands of Moroccans.